


when we were still god's enemies

by MalachiTamim



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: 2nd Person, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beginnings, F/F, Good Friday, One Shot, asami perspective, seminary setting, sharing a bed...er...a truck bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 00:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10628427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalachiTamim/pseuds/MalachiTamim
Summary: “I grew up Catholic, so Holy Week is a very Catholic experience to me, and ever since I came out I don’t feel safe in Catholic churches anymore.” You hold your breath. Teaching students who frequently possess religious convictions that tell them to ignore or reject your identity has made you cautious about sharing your experiences.





	

You heave a weary sigh as you climb out of the cab of your pickup and into the bed in the visitor parking lot that’s free to park in after five pm. It’s Good Friday. Part of you feels guilty you’re not in church, but the bigger part of you just wants to go home. Unfortunately, neither is an option, so you pull out the blankets you keep in the toolbox and spread them out on the floor of your sprayed in bed.

You’d grabbed some cheesy bread from the really good pizza place in the shopping center where you park off campus to avoid paying ninety dollars a month to park at a parking garage two miles from the building where you teach and take classes. It’s expensive cheesy bread, but you’re willing to shell out a few extra dollars because it’s the best in the city.

Sadness is consuming you today, so you chew slowly to stave off the nausea you feel even though your stomach rolls with hunger. It’s maybe a bit melodramatic to sit in your truck and eat your dinner by yourself, but you decide it was worth it. It’s a spring evening that smells like summer and feels like the best parts of your childhood. The sun is falling low in the sky, but it’s early yet and late enough in the year that you have plenty of daylight left. The parking lot is comfortable and fills you with a strange nostalgia routed in familiarity. It’s one of those moments when you know in a few years you’ll be gone from this place, and all you’ll have is the memory of this parking lot that was closed in on three sides by a parking garage and a chain linked fence with trees leaning over it, how it looked out onto the track and Health Sciences building you never entered, and how it felt to sit here because you didn’t want to go home.

Sometimes you wonder how you got here, how you went from an engineering undergrad to a Master of Divinity to a PhD program in religion. You were primed to take over your dad’s company, but he was arrested for tax fraud the fall of your senior year of undergrad, and you walked away. And now you’re here, for better or for worse. Mostly it’s for the better, but sometimes when you’re awake at night worrying about the future, you regret entering a field with so few jobs.

Tonight’s a night for reminisces and haunting insecurity about your identity. Your roommate’s homophobic family is in town for the holiday weekend. Though you’re bi and not gay, his mother’s hatred extends to you. As much as you love your roommate, you aren’t willing to share a house and your evening with them alone since he’s busy at church all evening. So you’re here in this parking lot that has turned into a weirdly liminal space since you arrived with your brooding thoughts and nowhere to else to go.

You look out at the sidewalk in the distance where a figure shrouded in shadows approaches. A few more seconds and Korra walks out into the sunlight. It makes sense she would appear on this night when you’re not yourself…or maybe when you’re most yourself. You’ve abandoned your lighthearted exterior and embraced your true feelings. Korra was a student in the Intro to Old Testament course you had TA’d for last year. You hadn’t interacted much until the end of the last discussion group section when she came up to you and told you you were the first woman teacher she’d ever had in a religion class. It stuck with you. Now as a second year Master of Divinity student, she’s everywhere. She’s involved in many different organizations, and professors know they can count on her, so they’re constantly asking her to run things. So she’s always in the main building or the library, walking with purpose, and completely unapologetic for taking up space. You know this because she is LOUD, sometimes to a fault, but mostly she just exudes confidence. It’s been awhile since you talked to her, though sometimes you’ll smile at her in passing.

A few weeks ago you told your friend Opal who works on campus that you have a low key crush on Korra. She’s bold, but obviously sweet. She’s sarcastic, but in a funny way. She’s smart, but she knows when to keep her mouth shut and let others talk. And Lord God in Heaven above is she beautiful! When you explained all of this to Opal, she said it sounded like you had more than a low key crush, but you don’t because you won’t let yourself. Korra is straight; you’re almost certain. Even just keeping a casual ear on MDiv gossip is enough for you to know she’s dated a couple of guys since starting here. She broke up with the most recent guy over winter break. All fall, they were inseparable, and come January, Korra no longer had a Mako shaped shadow. So, while deep in your heart you harbor a low key crush that makes it difficult to talk around her, you know will never amount to more.

By now, Korra has reached the parking lot, your parking lot, specifically. After almost two years of practice, you finally know how to talk to your students and former students with ease. “Hi Korra,” you call, raising a hand in greeting. “How does the end of your semester look?” 

“Hey, Asami!” She’s panting a bit as she drags herself over to the side of your truck with her backpack and two cloth grocery bags full of books. “It’s…about what it looks like.” She lifts the bags a bit and grins self-consciously. The flexing of her arms muscles, unbelievably defined for a grad student, tries to draw your eyes in, but your brain refuses to allow you to stare. Thankfully.

Instead, you close your eyes for a few seconds and inhale deeply, the smell of cheesy bread grounding you, and let out a shaky laugh. “Yes. That looks familiar.”

“So, I’ve gotta ask. What are you doing here?”

Now it’s you who is self-conscious, and you have to fight against the anxious squirming that is your body’s natural response. “Umm…eating cheesy bread and avoiding going home. Care to join me?” The world around you grows still as your brain catches up with your mouth, and you realize what you said. You hadn’t really meant to ask that. Thank God for your constant joking demeanor with these students.

Korra’s frown mirrors yours as she processes your words concurrently. Unlike you, her confusion clears quickly. Unlike most of your students, she seems to be oblivious to your joking tone. “Wait, really? Okay!” 

She drops her bags and her backpack on the macadam and vaults herself into the bed of the truck. A part of you mourns the damage she undoubtedly dealt to those books that already suffer the misfortunes of the lives of library books. The rest of you overrides the minority voice in order to focus on not dumping the pizza sauce as you shift the blankets so Korra has somewhere soft to sit. It’s not without regret that you pass over a hunk of cheesy bread and offer the plastic container of sauce in a sacrilegious communion on a day of fasting.

 _The body of Christ broken for you. The blood of Christ poured out for you._ Is what you would say if you were protestant. _Amen_. Is how she might respond if you’d deigned to say this aloud. 

“No church tonight?” Her words are muffled by bread and the wet, smacking sound that happens when one chews with their mouth open. Normally you would have to fight back an angry reprimand, but it’s Korra.

You shake your head, and your long, dark hair has the courage you don’t to reach out to brush Korra’s strong shoulders. “I grew up Catholic, so Holy Week is a very Catholic experience to me, and ever since I came out I don’t feel safe in Catholic churches anymore.” You hold your breath. Teaching MDivs who frequently possess religious convictions that tell them to ignore or reject your identity has made you cautious about sharing your experiences. Even knowing Korra has queer friends isn’t enough to quell your fear.

“Oh shit. Yeah. That makes sense. I didn’t…I didn’t realize.” 

What Korra didn’t realize isn’t clear to you, but she’s not looking at you and doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate, so you don’t ask her to. “What about you?” you ask instead. “You’re not going to church?” Most MDivs work or intern in local churches in order to prepare them for their pastoral futures, but it occurs to you that you don’t know Korra’s religious affiliations or if she even has any. 

“Me? Oh. Uh. I don’t really do the whole church thing. I’m mostly here to work with Tenzin since he’s done a lot of work on how Christianity has impacted First Nation people. I’m—uh—I’m interested in preserving and passing on the traditions of my community, and I don’t have the background in Christianity that I need. So here I am.” She laughs self-deprecatingly. When she nudges you, you know she’s allowing you to see a moment of vulnerability because you were vulnerable with her. And you appreciate it, but she nudged you and hasn’t moved away, and her touch is gloriously distracting. 

Your salvation is that talking to MDivs has become automatic. You could, and sometimes do, talk to them in your sleep. “That’s really cool, Korra.” It is cool, and if you were a little less selfish you might be more focused on that instead of how much easier it is to eat with her beside you because her presence lifts the sadness. “But you’re sticking around here for Easter?”

“Uh. Yeah. It didn’t really make much sense to fly back to Canada for two days. I’ll see my parents for a couple of weeks in May. What about you?”

The disaster that is your family life is not something you’ve shared with any students, and if you’re honest, a desire for anonymity and a fresh start is one reason you left the engineering field. There everyone knew about your dad. In religion, no one does. But this is the liminal space where light meets dark, reality and fantasy collide, and nothing bad can touch you, so you tell her the truth. “I don’t really have anywhere to go. My mom died when I was little, and my dad’s in jail. I could go visit friends, but most of them are pastors, and Holy Week is hellish for them. So I’m hanging out here with my roommate and his homophobic family…” You trail off and let the last negative vibrations dissipate into the air that is rapidly cooling the night as well as your lingering hatred of your roommate’s family because they inadvertently brought about this moment. 

“Well fuck. Then there’s me feeling bad for myself because my family is so far away. Shit. I’m sorry, Asami. Do—do you mind if I ask how you identify?” Korra looks stricken, like she’s said something she shouldn’t. “Just so I don’t say anything stupid,” she hastens to correct. 

You shrug because while it might have been a point of tension years ago back when your dad was in your life, you’re not really hiding it. The people who know you know you’re not straight. “I’m bi.” 

Korra meets your eyes and nods slowly. Then she breaks eye contact and focuses on picking at the paint in your truck bed that is starting to peel; your heart rate picks up, and the world stills in the way that happens when you know a confession is forthcoming. “I—me too, I guess. It’s—it’s not something I really talk about here. It hasn’t felt safe here, but my family knows and stuff. That I’m bi, I mean.” 

A rogue portion of a verse from Romans, the one you’ve always thought connected well to the Magnificat, runs through your mind: _When we were still God’s enemies._ Fitting for Good Friday, you think, and especially this Good Friday where you are two bisexual girls seeking refuge from the Church. 

Everything inside you is singing at the news that you were wrong, and Korra is not straight. Coming out protocol, however, dictates a different set of behaviors. You smile at her, the knowing, welcoming smile that is meant to be calming and disarming. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share that.” 

“Uh. Yeah.” Korra seems uncomfortable, like she isn’t quite ready to talk more about it right now, so you don’t push even though you have a million questions. “So how did you get into Hebrew Bible? I—you don’t have to tell me, but I’ve always wondered.” 

Your butt is growing numb, so you shift a bit in your nest of blankets, and if it brings you closer to Korra, so be it. Tonight’s a night for recklessness. “You know I did bachelor’s in engineering?”

“Y-yes.” She sounds a little breathless, and you have to hide your smile in the sleeve of your sweater like you’re stifling a yawn.

“During my senior year, my dad was arrested for tax fraud. He ran a successful engineering firm that I was supposed to join. After he was arrested, I couldn’t do it anymore. I finished out the degree, but I knew I was done. I’d always been interested in religion, and I’d taken a few biblical Hebrew courses, so I figured I’d apply to Master’s programs in that. So I did my Master of Divinity and decided I wanted to be a professor. Now I’m here.” It lacks the nobility of Korra’s life plan, but you think that might be true of anyone’s; no one is as pure as she is, up to and maybe even including Jesus Christ himself. Sacrilege again, you know, but you can’t help thinking he might agree. 

Korra tilts her head and nods thoughtfully, her chin-length hair brushing her beautiful shoulder. You’re both quiet for a time as you finish the last of the cheesy bread and behold the time of evening where you can watch it growing darker if you don’t blink. The two of you sit frozen for so long in the same positions that your muscles seize up and your joints ache. Eventually, Korra shifts and breaks the tension, only to immediately escalate it. 

“Can I—I’m going to say something that might ruin this evening, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I know I’m not out here and that that complicates things, but I’ve had a huge crush on you since last year. I thought maybe you weren’t straight, but it was so hard to tell. Gosh. You’re just so cool and beautiful, and you know it, but you don’t make a big deal about it. Anyway, do you maybe want to go on a date with me?” 

Most of the time, you’re not sure if you believe in God, maybe peculiar for a future religion professor but not as uncommon as one might think. Tonight, however, is different. When religious figures enter a liminal state, the outcome is never certain: they may suffer unspeakable harm or emerge transcended into a new state of being. Tonight you experience the latter, and you’re certain that God exists, and more importantly, that you have a place in God’s realm. With a jolt, you remember the rest of that verse: _When we were still God’s enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of the Son._

“Yes,” you tell Korra. She smiles so widely that at first you irrationally think it single handedly lights up the parking lot, but then you realize the street lights turned on. “Yes.”  

**Author's Note:**

> Just a one shot. More specifically a birthday one shot for Mitsakuni since I failed at sending a care package. Parabéns!
> 
> Also, a note on the translation: it's a conglomeration of English translations so it sounded pretty that I then made slightly less pretty in order to use gender neutral language for God.
> 
> Sorry if anyone subscribed to this got a notification. I just fixed some typos that were bothering me.


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